


nightmares turn to dreams

by jillyfae



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Background Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Gen, Huerta Memorial Hospital, Injury Recovery, Mass Effect January Jubilation, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29231319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: If you'd told Kaidan five years ago that he'd be friends with a former-assassin he wouldn't have even been able to laugh at you...But stranger things have happened since Shepard, and this is one he won't ever regret.Because how you do a thing matters, even when that thing is just listening to a friend talk over dinner.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko & Thane Krios
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	nightmares turn to dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flaine1996](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flaine1996/gifts).



> So my giftee mentioned a fondness for the group dynamics, for a slew of my favorite characters, and especially for F!Shenko, so hopefully this hits enough of the right notes... I always wanted to see these two together, so it was impossible to resist writing it. 
> 
> [[tumblr post](https://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/642333114727792640)]  
> [[prequel fanmix](https://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/642332910801813504f)]

Hospitals are too damned _bright._

This one's at least got big picture windows, so it's not all that fake white sterility.

If Kaidan thinks about it too much it makes him feel worse, though, because he's _inside_ a space station. It's not real sunlight, it's not real _fresh air,_ and yet it fools him for a moment every morning when he first looks "outside", and wants to crack the window to let some of that _in._

But the outside's not much different than the inside, even with all the cultivated plants and water out there. (There are plants and water in _here_ , after all. They'd wheeled him to the atrium as soon as he could manage sitting up, and they let him walk himself there now that he's a bit more mobile.)

He misses the wind off the seashore, the tang of real pine as the air starts turning cold, the way frost makes the inside of his nose tickle. (It'd be a terrible idea, of course, sitting outside in a Canadian autumn in the shape he's in, but he wants it, beyond rhyme or reason or logic.)

Or maybe he wants it to be summer, sitting on a porch drinking a cold beer.   


_Nothing quite like a cold beer on a hot day,_ his grandmother had told him once, back when he'd been granted his first spare sip of his father's drink, and almost spat it out again at how dank and bitter it had tasted. She'd had a quirk of a smile on her face, and the rest of the adults had barely smothered their laughter at his expression. _Though you might not agree with me on that one just yet._

 _Or ever,_ his mother had answered, shaking her head over her sparkling water. She never did drink beer, and seldom used wine for anything other than cooking, either. _Some of us still don't._

"You still with me?" 

Kaidan blinks, makes himself focus on Tiana, his physical therapist. "Sorry," he answers, his voice rough in his too dry throat. He reaches out a hand, and she slips a water bottle in it before he can even ask. He drinks, tries not to think too much about how different the tepid liquid is from the beer in his memory.

Tiana shakes her head when he passed the bottle back, a smile clear in the flare of her mandibles. "No apologies necessary. We're almost done."

Kaidan sighs out a breath in relief, ignores the ache in his thighs and back, and makes himself do one more rep, than another. 

"There we go," Tiana sighs with him as he finishes. "Time to cool down."

Kaidan nods, and doesn't bother trying to speak again as they go through the familiar routine. Sweat is slick on his skin, and he hates how exhausted he is, hates the dull throb from the neutral amp they'd put in to make sure his biotics didn't flare during his recovery.

SOP for head wounds; he knows that, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

He never thought he'd miss that sharp-sweet pressure from his L2 implants, that constant background he'd forced himself to accept over the years, but now that it's temporarily suppressed he doesn't quite feel like _himself,_ almost as off-kilter from the change in the static between his ears as from relearning the shape and stretch of his body _._

He wonders, a little, how much worse it must have been for Shepard, to wake up with _everything_ different around her, body and mind and galaxy... 

He shakes his head, and makes himself focus on the here and now. 

He's got it so much better than she did, he doesn't have anything to complain about, not really.

He's not isolated, he's got messages from his folks waiting for his reply, even a quick note from Anderson in his inbox. He's got a tech analysis to go over from Tali, who asked for a second opinion, and a rant from Garrus about their current REV that ends with a truly bewildered _how the fuck does this damn thing make me miss the Mako?_

Nothing from Shepard, but he understands that, he does. They need more than blank words on a screen. She'd come to visit him, he knew that, but he'd been too far gone, not yet awake, and he wishes... 

He just has to wait.

He's getting _better,_ even if it's at a frustratingly slow pace...

Unlike his standing dinner engagement. Krios is never going to get better. 

He and Thane eat together most days.

They don't ever talk about Shepard, the one thing that they have in common, the one thing that brought them together...

It's nice, actually, to talk to someone who didn't know him before, who has no expectations, no preconceptions. Who goes still whenever Kaidan does, whenever one of them thinks of something from their past that's too heavy to let slip away quickly. 

Only tonight, Thane doesn't go silent, as if he can tell that Kaidan's worries are closer to the surface than usual. 

"She keeps a picture of you."

Kaidan blinks, his fork hovering somewhere between his plate and his mouth.

"In her quarters, on her desk." Thane blinks, more slowly than usual, the movement of his eyelids easy to follow. He exhales, heavy and rasping. "A reminder, I think, not just of why she fights, but _how_ she chooses to do so."

Kaidan closes his eyes, puts his fork down with a soft _tunk_. It aches, twisting and bitter, somewhere in his chest where his heart's supposed to be. 

He'd failed to be there for her, and yet she acted like he had been, and he wasn't sure he'd ever forgive himself... 

Thane scoffs in the back of his throat, the noise softer and deeper than one Kaidan would make, caught in the dregs of his illness, in the shape of his mouth and tongue. "I do not say that to make you feel worse, Alenko."

Kaidan manages half a smile, opens his eyes. "But I'm good at feeling guilty, Krios, what else should I do?"

Thane rolls his eyes, his expression soft. "Not that."

"You any good at taking your own advice?"

"I have made my peace—"

Kaidan scoffs that time, louder and sharper. "No, you haven't. Settling into dying isn't the same thing as accepting how you lived."

Thane is truly still this time, his hands pressing down on the table hard enough that Kaidan can see the shape of the seam through the thick joint in his middle finger.

"There are things I've done..." Thane trails off.

"I killed my first man when I was a teenager." Kaidan shrugs as Thane tilts his head, clearly listening, even as he doesn't quite lift his head enough to meet Kaidan's gaze. "And sure, it was provoked out of me, was mostly a protective instinct, and I'm not sure there was a way to have stopped it, not with everything else that was happening..." He trails off this time, swallows. He knows Thane is waiting for him to finish, recognizes that he's not trying to stop, that he just has to line up the words properly. "But for just a moment I was _glad_ I'd stopped him, proud of what I was capable of doing to another person, and no matter how horrified I was a moment later, I will never again not know that about myself." 

Thane nods, slow and steady and understanding. Kaidan had thought he'd understand. Not a lot of people would. "And then what did you do, once you learned yourself?"

Kaidan huffs out something that's not a laugh. "I got lost for awhile."

"Perhaps I should let myself get lost." Thane's voice is thick, and a little damp, and Kaidan can't quite tease out the emotion from his illness. 

_I don't think you have the time._ But Kaidan knows not to say that. Doesn’t even want to, really. Thane doesn’t need the time, after all, not like Kaidan had, all those years ago.   


"I don't know, I think that's hard to do when you've found yourself again, already." Kaidan lets himself smile; it's not entirely happy, but it's there, and he sees the tension in Thane's shoulders ease at the sight of it. "You've got Kolyat, and your memories. And the _Normandy._ "

"We both have Shepard."

Kaidan nods. He knows he does, knows he will, when he can stand on his own, when she comes back. It might not be what it was, nothing's ever exactly what it was, but they'll still have... something. They'll make it enough, he's sure of it. "We'll always have Shepard. And she'll always have us."

"Always?" Thane doesn't have an eyebrow to raise, but the expression's familiar nonetheless, sardonic but not as heavy as he was a moment ago. Thane doesn't have much time left.

“How she chooses to fight, remember?” How you live matters, even when you're not around to see the consequences. Kaidan knows he'll never forget Thane Krios, and the company he had during this odd oasis in his life. Knows Shepard never forgets any of her friends. Kaidan's smile is a bit easier this time, and it widens even further when he sees Thane smile back, small but sincere. Thane understands. "So yeah. Always."


End file.
